richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

1 M I. • C; O () I) ' B O O K A N D 1 !! F. .VI O R A L. Z I: / T (, V. I S 7 267
also sound backwardly racist in ours. Here he is in a debate in 1858
with Stephen A. Douglas:
I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor
of bringing about in any way the social and political
equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor
ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to
intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition
to this, that there is a physical difference between the
white and black races which I believe will forever forbid
the two races living together on terms of social and
political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live,
while they do remain together there must be the position
of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man
am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the
white race. 105
Had Huxley and Lincoln been born and educated in our time,
they would have been the first to cringe with the rest of us at their
own Victorian sentiments and unctuous tone. I quote them only to
illustrate how the Zeitgeist moves on. If even Huxley, one of
the great liberal minds of his age, and even Lincoln, who freed the
slaves, could say such things, just think what the average Victorian
must have thought. Going back to the eighteenth century it is, of
course, well known that Washington, Jefferson and other men of
the Enlightenment held slaves. The Zeitgeist moves on, so
inexorably that we sometimes take it for granted and forget that the
change is a real phenomenon in its own right.
There are numerous other examples. When the sailors first
landed in Mauritius and saw the gentle dodos, it never occurred to
them to do anything other than club them to death. They didn't
even want to eat them (they were described as unpalatable).
Presumably, hitting defenceless, tame, flightless birds over the head
with a club was just something to do. Nowadays such behaviour
would be unthinkable, and the extinction of a modern equivalent of
the dodo, even by accident, let alone by deliberate human killing, is
regarded as a tragedy.